Aug 15 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
Matt Yglesias has a new post discussing Switzerland. I have a longstanding interest in Switzerland, and thus cannot refrain from commenting. In the first part of the post, Yglesias establishes that Switzerland is indeed a highly successful country. He also explains that this success is not due to some sort of gimmick,...
Aug 15 2022
By:
G. Patrick Lynch
I am neither famous, nor Oxford trained. I do not hold a prestigious position at the Hoover Institute, nor have I won “many prizes” as Niall Ferguson’s bio at the end of his book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, proclaims. So I begin this review with several obvious disadvantages compared to the esteemed a...
Aug 15 2022
By:
David Henderson
Yes, you read the title right. It's not a misprint. I know that the actual bumper sticker, which I used to see around California regularly, is "Think Globally, Act Locally." That made some sense. But when I watched CBS Sunday Morning's August 7, 2022 segment on climate change, one of the people interviewed seemed to...
Aug 14 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
I am interested in writing a critique of libertarian monetary ideas. (I already have one criticizing MMT.) But first I'd like to have a better sense of what those ideas actually are. Thus I'd appreciate any comments that you might have on the best places to find a summary of these ideas.Let's start with "abolish the ...
Aug 14 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
I often disagree with The Economist, but I read the venerable British magazine because their opinions are generally well argued and supported by credible studies and documented facts. There is one area, though, where they become as irrational as a bull in front of a red rag: guns in the hands of ordinary individuals in...
Aug 13 2022
By:
Edgar Pereira
It is now almost an axiom of the theory of economic development that the route to affluence lies by way of an industrial revolution. –Phyllis Deane The world can be divided into rich and poor areas due to the cumulative differences in their rates of economic growth. In 1980, the Independent C...
Aug 13 2022
By:
Chris Loukas
Author's note: Edith Kuiper is a feminist economist and former president of the International Association for Feminist Economics. She is an associate professor at the department of economics at New Paltz State University of New York. Important publications include Out of the Margin: Feminist Perspectives on Economics (...
Read this David Henderson Book Review:
Apr 5 2021
By David R. Henderson
A Book Review of The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn, by Avner Offer and Gabriel Söderberg.1 Since 1996, I've had a deal with the editors of the Wall Street Journal. I get up early on the West Coast the day the Nobel Prize in Economic Science is announced, decide wi...
Aug 13 2022
By:
David Henderson
The title given the act is a masterpiece of duplicity. It’s not about inflation at all, but instead is about raising taxes and spending more money on ObamaCare and green projects. It’s important, therefore, to consider the provisions of the act and their likely effects and not get fixated on inflation. The act will...
Aug 12 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
The Fed often explains the monetary policy transmission mechanism as follows: Tighter money results in more restrictive financial conditions. This reduces the growth rate of aggregate demand, and eventually slows inflation. Now let's suppose that the Fed is expected to achieve its goal of slowing demand at exactly th...
Aug 12 2022
By:
David Henderson
In my short note that I inserted into Kevin Corcoran's recent thoughts on the political system, I pointed out that although there is strong overlap between the rich and the politically powerful, they are not the same. This requires elaboration. The best way to do it is to come up with counterexample...
Aug 11 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
I often wonder how much our view of political institutions is shaped by Hollywood films. For instance, when you look at various times that President Trump got into hot water, they were often occasions when he seemed to assume that things in government are done the way they are portrayed in the movies. He didn't seem ...
Aug 11 2022
By:
Walter Block
If you ask a good freshman student in Economics 101 what is the cause of a shortage, you will get a quick answer, almost but not quite by rote: demand is greater than supply and for some reason, price has not risen so as to stop the shortage. That is it. That is it in a nutshell. Not much more need be said: shortages a...
Aug 10 2022
By:
David Henderson
A friend on Facebook writes: Many in the MSM (mainstream media) will lie to your face. Be discerning. Prices rose 8.5% year over year in July. That is NOT a significant slowdown. If you only lost 1/12th of your money since last July, that really is not an improvement in circumstance after losing 1/11th of your money s...
Aug 10 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
We must of course remain vigilant that laws not be used to harass or destroy political opponents. A Wall Street Journal editorial of this morning says as much. But this is not a reason for rulers or former rulers to be above the law like dictators. The fear of Leviathan---the all-powerful state modeled by Thomas Hob...
Aug 10 2022
By:
David Henderson
Kevin Corcoran, a regular reader, has yet again sent me an interesting basis for a blog post. Here's Kevin: Senator Bernie Sanders once tweeted: Say Bill Gates was actually taxed $100 billion. We could end homelessness and provide safe drinking water to everyone in this country. Bill would still be a multibillio...